Jo Turnbull's presentation at SES NYC March 2013 on Relationship building on a budget.

1. Screw Link Building – It is called
Relationship Building
On a Budget
Presenter Jo Turnbull
New York | March 25–28
#SESNY

2. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
The Beginning of SEO Jo
• Worked client side
• Moved agency September 2009
• i-level then MEC
• Organizer Search London
• Freelance
• Blogger at State of Search
• Business Director at iProspect Sydney, Australia
All from Relationship Building
@SEOJoBlogs
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3. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Studies
• Will use 3 case studies to demonstrate the importance of
relationship building over link building:
1) Search London
2) SEO Jo Blogs
3) Client case studies
@SEOJoBlogs
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4. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Why build a relationship vs a link?
• Low cost for you/client
• Long term
• Beneficial to you and the client
• Quality link building is about relationship building
• Stay current with shifting market dynamics
• Don’t be left behind – Google updates
@SEOJoBlogs
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5. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
How to build relationships
• Honest and open
• Attend events
• Take the long term view
• Do something different – stand out
• Ask why?
@SEOJoBlogs
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6. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Study 1.
Search London
• Search London, took over ownership October 2010 when
organizer stepped down – 200 members
• Goal - to grow the event – not just for links
• Wanted to know more people in search
• Was it going to be a success or not?
• How do I get people to attend?
• Lots of competition – London
• Links not as important as Relationship Building
@SEOJoBlogs
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7. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
1. Search London – Why?
@SEOJoBlogs
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8. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
January 2012
@SEOJoBlogs
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9. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
January 2013
@SEOJoBlogs
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10. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Search London - members
•Jan 2012 – 592 members
•5 meetups 2012
•January 2013 – 1100 members
•Increase 86%
•As of March 2013 – 1230 members
All of this through Relationship Building
@SEOJoBlogs
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11. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Search London - How
• Strong domain - www.meetup.com - attracts new members
• Good speakers – don’t be afraid to ask
– Finlay Clark from Google first meetup January 2011
– Lisa Myers – CEO and Founder of Verve Search
– Paddy Moogan – Author of Linkbuildingbook.com
– Kelvin Newman – Brighton SEO
– Judith Lewis – Head of Search at Beyond, Blogger at SEOChicks
– Richard Baxter – CEO and Founder of SEOGadget
• Catchy titles each presentation
– Search in 2011
– Link building post panda
– Schema markup
– The value of SEO and social
@SEOJoBlogs
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12. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Search London - How
• Guest post – SEOGadget
• Interact with others at the event
• Don’t spam people
– send an email announcing event, reminder and post event
• Central venue
– Easy to get to, easy to find, not weather dependant
• Use Twitter #SearchLondon and encourage others
– Updates, remaining tickets left
• Film presentations for later
@SEOJoBlogs
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13. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Search London - Results
• New Search London website (BETA)
– www.searchconferences.com
– Will feature meetups in Sydney
• Google’s Pierre Far asked to speak at the meetup
• First day time event – Google Campus March 20th
• Now Search London has nearly 1,230 members in 2 years (from
200 October 2010)
• Search London organizing team
@SEOJoBlogs
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14. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
So what? Could I have built this from links?
• Invited to guest post – Linkdex, Blueglass
• Client confidence
• Personal brand has increased in industry
• People want to sponsor the event
• Latest conference in front of entrepreneurs
• More links to SEO Jo Blogs and referrals
• Cost = $60 every 6 months and cost venue hire through
sponsorship
@SEOJoBlogs
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15. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Studies
• Will use 3 case studies to demonstrate the importance of
relationship building over link building:
1) Search London
2) SEO Jo Blogs
3) Client case studies
@SEOJoBlogs
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16. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Study 2.
SEO Jo Blogs - 2012
• Work freelance in Perth, Australia
• Ran 5 meetups
• Attended 2 Brighton SEOs
• SMX London and SMX NYC
• LinkLove
• SearchLove
• UK Search Awards
All of this from Relationship Building
@SEOJoBlogs
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17. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
How to get started
@SEOJoBlogs
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18. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Be Honest and Approachable
• Don’t be afraid of using your contacts
• Find a good blog in your field
• Use Rapportive to find email address – plugin for gmail
• Use Followerwonk
• Follow people on Twitter and @tweet them
• Engage in the community – be sociable and share tweets
• Is there a public Facebook group?
• Personalize the email
• Short version of the email (no one likes long emails)
@SEOJoBlogs
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19. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Attend relevant events
• Many events eg meetup.com, trade shows, new product
launches
• Travel bloggers/food bloggers/mommy bloggers
• Approach with interest in the event
• Speak to other bloggers
• Speak to the press
Could you build these relationships just from link building?
@SEOJoBlogs
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20. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Attend Relevant meetups
@SEOJoBlogs
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21. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Think about the long term
• Don’t just be looking for that one link
• It is ok to have more than one guest per different blog
• Become a regular contributor
• Great blog – State of Search, SEOmoz, Search Engine Land
• Encourage others to guest post on your site
• Interview others on your site - Search Predictions 2013
Could you have the same results from link building?
@SEOJoBlogs
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22. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Do something different
• Make sure you stand out
• Wanted to be a blogger for State of Search
• Already many UK based bloggers
• Wanted to combine travel and work
• First State of Search Euro Roadshow
• US Roadshow
• Soon to be Australia Roadshow
• Result = Blogger for State of Search
• Cost = No additional outside of pre-planned travel
@SEOJoBlogs
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23. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Results
• Now regular blogger State of Search – European Best Search
Blog 2012
• Post on Brighton SEO was one of the top 3 read posts
September 2012.
• Met 16 SEOs all over Europe
• Met 6 SEOs from the US
• Invited to attend the UK Search Awards
• Job in Sydney iProspect, Australia
@SEOJoBlogs
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24. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
@SEOJoBlogs
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25. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
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26. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Traffic to SEOJoBlogs.com
saw a peak in traffic on the
day of the event.
Could this have been
achieved without establishing
those relationships?
@SEOJoBlogs
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27. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Studies
• Will use 3 case studies to demonstrate the importance of
relationship building over link building:
1) Search London
2) SEO Jo Blogs
3) Client case studies
@SEOJoBlogs
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28. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Study 3.
Vacation rentals
• Holiday apartments in Europe
• The client has a blog that has not been updated
• Sole KPI – increase in rankings
• Only off site work allowed
@SEOJoBlogs
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29. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Do something different – for your clients
• Engaged in blogger outreach
• Reciprocal blogging
• Relationship with the bloggers
• Good blogs via meetups/search events
• Updated the client blog weekly with photos of new cities
visited
@SEOJoBlogs
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30. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Results
• Increase in number of referring sites to client’s site
• More natural link profile
• Increase in rankings for key terms – one from 10 to 5 in 6
weeks
• Brought forward fresh way of thinking
• Now the agency is engaging in blogger outreach
• Built up relationship with blog sites
• Formed travel site Globaltravelhunter.com
• Cost =$ 300
@SEOJoBlogs
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31. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Case Study 3.
Retail client
• Take every opportunity
• Client moved to new location in a new shopping mall
• “Melville Jewellers” in Western Australia
• www.melvillejewellers.com.au
• Decided to have “official launch party”
• Leaflets, advertisement in local paper
• Prize draw – collect customer details
• Result = doubled sales for the day
• Cost = $1,000 promotion
@SEOJoBlogs
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32. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Do something different – for your clients
• Loyal customer
13 years wins star
prize
• Continue to
receive increased
number of
customers
@SEOJoBlogs
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33. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Building relationships takes effort
@SEOJoBlogs
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34. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Work on what you can do for your clients
• Brainstorm ideas for content
• Buzz monitoring tools – buzz numbers, Brandwatch, Radian6
• What are people saying about the brand?
– Positive, negative, neutral
• Topsy (what is trending)
• Google Instant Search – don’t click enter
• Google Insights/Trends
• Be prepared to address negative mentions
• The BodyForm Rant of Truth in response to negative comment
from “Richard”
@SEOJoBlogs
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35. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Find good blogs
• List of travel blogs
• Advanced search queries
– travel blogs inurl:guest-post
– travel blogs “write for us”
• Check out the blogs on the 10th page and work backwards
• Engage with blog communities
– MyBlogGuest
– BloggerLinkUp
– Make contacts with who you know already
@SEOJoBlogs
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36. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
How to check the blogs are genuine
• Social media profiles established
• Contact us page
• Do they have Google Authorship?
• Look to see if there other sites on same IP address
• Send a test email – do they respond?
• SEOmoz – PA and DA, number of backlinks
• Searchmetrics – how visible are they in the SERPs and how
long?
@SEOJoBlogs
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37. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Personalize email
• Find the contact’s name and address it in the email
• Mention if there has been communication before
– Did they follow you back on Twitter?
– Did your colleague introduce you both?
• Compliment them on the blog
• Explain why you want to write
• Suggest a couple of topics
• Get their buy in
@SEOJoBlogs
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38. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Interaction with the clients
• Agree on the content theme with client
• Adhere to brand guidelines and sign off post title
• Share the blogs with the client
• Personalize the emails
• Why should these bloggers want your content?
• Remember – stick to a budget
@SEOJoBlogs
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39. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
When the post is live
• Tweet
• Don’t be afraid to promote
• Share internally
• Share with friends
• Stay in touch with the blogger
• Share the blogger’s posts interesting for you
@SEOJoBlogs
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40. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Long term
• Don’t just look for the sponsored post
• Build up relationship with the blog owner
• Check out the past posts on the blog
• Can the blogger help run a competition?
– Look for comments on competition
– Who enters the competition? - more potential bloggers
• Don’t give up
• Email follow up, no more than twice
@SEOJoBlogs
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41. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Do something different – Competition
• Prize = visit 25 world wide destinations in 6 months
• All expenses paid
• Winner blogs
• Paid US $50,000 after 6 month period
• Applications close on 31st March
• http://www.mydestination.com/bbb/competition
@SEOJoBlogs
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42. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Do something different – Sponsor an event
• London Bloggers Meetup – over 1,200 members
• January 2010 O2 stopped being the only UK operator to offer
the iPhone
• iPhone on Vodafone UK
• Great opportunity to win free iPhone
• 75 Bloggers + attended
• Vodafone ranked number 2 after O2
• Cost = bar tab in London ($2,500) + iPhone
@SEOJoBlogs
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43. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Summary
1) Honest and approachable
2) Attend events
3) Take the long term view with a business/client
4) Do something different
5) Why would they want to work with you?
•Building the relationship between the client and the blogger
•Stick to a budget
@SEOJoBlogs
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44. New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY
Thank you - NYC
Ask the Turn“bull” some questions
turnbull.jo@gmail.com
@SEOJoBlogs
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